After three well received events at VTC in Budapest 2011, ISWCS in Paris 2012, and VTC in Dresden 2013, the 4th International Workshop on Self-Organizing Networks (IWSON) will be organized in August 2014 in Barcelona. Accepted papers will appear in IEEExplore. Paper submissions are welcome now through the EDAS system at https://edas.info/newPaper.php?c=16375. Do consult the workshop web page http://tns.ds.unipi.gr/iwson2014/ for most recent information and submission instructions, as well as considering joining the group IWSON at LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/groups/IWSON-3453388?home=&gid=3453388&trk=anet_ug_hm&goback=.myg.

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the Self-Organizing Network (SON) paradigm applied to wireless communications networks. Approaching the challenges in radio network SON is a focus area in both industry and academia research. Currently, we note rising interest in field experience from early LTE SON deployments, SON coordination approaches and techniques, SON features tailored to the needs of multi-radio access technology and multi-layer networks/heterogeneous networks, SON in multi-vendor networks, and SON for future radio access technologies beyond LTE and LTE-Advanced.
With the success of the first three IWSON events in Budapest, Paris and Dresden, and the progressive focus on SON as the means to improve the performance and operability of mobile radio networks, it is timely and important to continue this workshop series bringing together people with SON interests. The scope of IWSON is intended to attract both industry and academia, primarily with a focus on 3GPP technologies such as LTE, but other systems can be considered as well.
The program will include both oral presentations and a poster & demonstration session to enable lively discussions. The workshop welcomes submissions from both researchers and practitioners, either closely related to currently standardized systems or considering future systems.

Areas of interest include but are not limited to

SON use cases and functions in heterogeneous networks
* Broad view of heterogeneous networks (3GPP and non-3GPP): multi-layer, - vendor, -tech. (incl. WiFi)
* Load balancing, traffic steering, end-to-end traffic steering, mobility management
* Interference and spectrum management
* Energy Saving Management (ESM) in heterogeneous networks
* MDT/TCE as boosting data source for SON
* RAN / network / user equipment support for SON
* SON for adaptive antenna systems

SON management and coordination
* SON workflow definition and management
* Policy and objective driven SON deployment, management and enforcement
* Coordination between network layers, vendors, technologies, RAN and backhaul
* Different coordination approaches, e.g., design vs. runtime, distributed vs. centralized, layered vs. monolithic, implicit vs. explicit, etc.
* Monitoring stability and performance of SON operation

SON in the field
* Test bed activities and experience from field trials
* Experiences and field performance of SON features implemented in LTE deployments

SON evolution
* Automation techniques and technologies beyond SON
* Cognitive and self-learning mechanisms
* Scenario and application-specific SON, e.g., smart cities, telematics applications, disaster handling, car-to-machine communications

Submission deadline is April 18th 2014, notifications due May 23rd and final versions due June 25th 2014.